Advertising in a network environment can be done in a number of different ways. For example, advertisements can be displayed on a search engine web page. Advertisements also can be displayed on web sites via means such as an advertisement banner.
According to one conventional method, when a user clicks on an advertisement banner displayed on a web page, the user's browser initiates retrieval of an advertisement web page associated with the banner.
Advertisers typically choose keywords or keyword phrases to be associated with their advertisements. In general, the keywords specify when to distribute an advertisement web page to a viewer.
For example, suppose that an advertiser wishes to advertise a brand of scuba equipment. In such an instance, the advertiser may choose the term “Toronto tourism” as a keyword phrase to be associated with the advertisement. When a viewer requests viewing of a web page, the server identifies the theme of the web page to identify which advertisements to serve to the user. In this example, assume that the retrieved web page is about scuba equipment. In such an instance, the server will identify the appropriate advertisement in a repository having the associated keyword phrase “Toronto tourism” and serve the “Toronto tourism” advertisement to the requestor. Thus, keywords are useful for targeted advertising.
In certain cases, multiple advertisers compete against each other for rights to use of keywords or keyword phrases because they want their advertisements displayed to users that retrieve certain types of web pages.
As mentioned above, when an end user enters a web site including an advertisement, the advertisement (for which the advertisers have bid on keyword or keyword phrases) is displayed to the end user. The displaying of the advertisement banner or selectable advertisement region in a retrieved web page is referred to as an ‘impression’.
Advertisers do not always pay for mere impressions. However, when an end user selects (i.e., “clicks”) an advertisement web page link by clicking a selectable region to view the corresponding advertisement, the advertiser normally is charged in response to the end user's selection. Typically, upon selection by the viewer to retrieve and view the advertisement, the advertiser is charged whatever amount the advertiser bid on the keyword or keyword phrase that caused the displaying (i.e., impression) of the advertisement.
According to conventional methods, each time an end user clicks on an advertisement in the above example, the advertiser is charged for that selection. This is known as “pay per click” since the advertiser only pays for the advertisement when an end user selects (i.e., “clicks”) on a displayed advertisement.